Python error on MantidPlot startup with RHEL5

[martyngigg]

Starting MantidPlot on a RHEL5 machine causes this error:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "`<string>`", line 17, in ?
  File "/SNSlocal/tr9/Mantid/Code/mybuild/bin/MantidFramework.py", line 821, in initialise
    self._importSimpleAPIToMain()     
  File "/SNSlocal/tr9/Mantid/Code/mybuild/bin/MantidFramework.py", line 854, in _importSimpleAPIToMain
    mod = reload(sys.modules[simpleapi])
  File "/home/tr9/.mantid/mantidsimple.py", line 16313
    print 'mtdHelp() - ' + cmd + ' not found in help list'
SystemError: com_backpatch: offset too large
Error running init file "/SNSlocal/tr9/Mantid/Code/mybuild/bin/mantidplotrc.py"

to be raised resulting in the failure to initialize Python.

It looks to be a problem that the mtdHelp() if/elif chain of statements has become too long.

[martyngigg]

This issue was originally trac ticket 2254